The madman was gone. One instant he had been there, and the next he wasn’t.
Nate leaned out the window. The lunatic was bolting toward the corner of the cabin. Refusing to let him get away, Nate darted to the door and removed the bar. He was outside and to the corner in seconds, but no one was there.
In frustration, Nate pounded the wall. Whoever it had been could now kill again. Wheeling, he stalked toward the door. Belatedly, he realized his mistake in leaving the door open. Worse, he had left his rifle inside. Fatigue was making him careless and carelessness cost lives.
A slight sound overhead caused Nate to glance up. There, perched on the edge of the roof, were the other two, as pale and feral as their brother, their hair a filthy mess, their skin splotched with bloodstains. They were naked from the waist up and their pants were in tatters. Their eyes had the same demonic quality, as if their human intelligence had been replaced by something from the pit. But the explanation was simpler. They were mad, completely mad, their sole craving to kill and kill again. In their deranged states, they couldn’t kill enough. They could never spill enough blood. Animal blood or human blood, it was all the same to them.
Even as Nate glanced up, they sprang. They were smaller and lighter, but there were two of them and their combined weight slammed him onto his back on the hard ground even as their teeth sought his throat and their hands clawed at him like talons.
Nate tried to shout a warning to the Woodrows, only to have a hand shoved halfway down his throat. He gagged on the feel of the fingers and the stench.
The other brother, Blayne, abruptly stood, whirled, and bounded into the cabin.
Heaving up, Nate dislodged the one on his chest. He had barely gained his knees when the madman was on him again. Filthy nails dug at his throat while a mouth rimmed with teeth speckled by bits and pieces of rancid meat gaped to bite his face.
Nate lashed out, a punch to the gut that jolted him. He pushed to his feet, but he was only halfway up when the oldest brother, Norton, flew back around the corner and without slowing or breaking stride lowered his shoulder and rammed into him.
As Nate went down, a shriek filled the cabin. It was followed by a bellow from Peter. A pistol cracked.
Good for them! Nate thought. He hoped they killed Blayne. He wanted to help them, but he had problems of his own. The pair on top of him were attempting to pin his arms.
Then Tyne screamed.
Roaring with rage, Nate exploded upward. He hurled one of the maniacs from him and clubbed the other with his fist. Racing inside, he stopped short in stunned horror.
Erleen was on the floor, her jugular bit open, bucking and kicking and blubbering scarlet down her chin. Peter was unconscious a few feet away, one hand clutching the pistol he had fired, the other spouting blood from the stumps of severed fingers. His throat was intact but not his face; half of it had been ripped off. Anora lay curled in the corner, unmoving.
In the other corner cowered Tyne. Protecting her, armed only with a short-bladed knife, was Aunt Aggie. Speckled with gore, her dress torn, she slashed and stabbed at the nimble figure prancing in front of them.
Blayne cackled as he pranced, his blood-wet fingers hooked like claws. Aggie lanced the knife at him, and he snapped his teeth at her wrist.
Nate groped for his other flintlock, but he had lost it. He drew his bowie and his tomahawk instead. A snarl behind him gave him a twinkling’s warning, and he spun. The other two were coming through the door. He swung the tomahawk and connected, but with the flat side and not the edge. It knocked— Liford, was it?—into Norton, and both tumbled back out. Nate whirled again.
Norton had seized Aggie’s wrist. She was on her knees, her arm bent at a sharp angle. He was trying to make her drop the knife. Her teeth clenched, she refused to let go.
Nate raced to her aid. He made no noise, yet somehow Blayne sensed him. He released Aggie and turned.
Those demonic eyes locked on Nate’s. For an instant, Nate slowed. Only an instant, but enough for Blayne to coil and leap aside as Nate arced the tomahawk in a blow intended to split Blayne’s skull.
Most foes, human foes, would have closed with Nate while he was off-balance. But Blayne was as far from human as a human could be. Cackling with demented glee, he did the last thing Nate expected; he ran. Nate gave chase, but Blayne was ungodly quick.
At the door, Nate stopped. He refused to make the same mistake twice. He slid the bowie into its sheath and the tomahawk under his belt. Kicking the door shut, he barred it, then reclaimed his rifle.
Aunt Aggie was cradling Tyne, who sobbed in great, racking heaves.
Erleen had stopped thrashing. She was dead. So was Anora. Her neck was broken. Peter was alive, but his pulse was weak. He had lost so much blood it was doubtful he would last much longer.
Nate covered Erleen and Anora with blankets. He eased Woodrow onto his back and was surprised when Peter’s eyes blinked open.
“My family?” The question was a weak rasp.
“Agatha and Tyne are alive.”
“Oh God.” Peter coughed, and swallowed his own blood. “And Blayne? Tell me you killed him.”
“They all got away.”
Peter coughed some more. “It can’t end like this. You know what you have to do.”
“Yes,” Nate King said. “I know.”
Madmen
The sun had risen an hour before, but it would be another hour before it was above the high cliffs. Gloom shrouded the valley.
Nate glided through a false twilight realm of grays and blacks, every sense alert. In addition to his bowie and the tomahawk, he had his rifle and one of his flintlocks. He’d searched for the other one, but it hadn’t been anywhere near the cabin. Someone had taken it. He had a fair idea who.
The squawk of a jay broke the stillness. Somehow, it was reassuring.
The madmen and their mother had come close to exterminating every living creature in the valley, but they hadn’t killed all of them.
Nate tried not to think of their latest victims. Before starting his hunt, he had wrapped Peter, Erleen and Anora in blankets and carried them out near the corral. He would bury them later. After. If he lived. If he didn’t—he tried not to think of that, either. Aunt Aggie and Tyne would be on their own, with over a thousand miles of wilderness between them and civilization. The prospects of their making it back were slim.
He prayed Aggie kept the front door barred, as he had told her to, and that she didn’t untie the curtains. She had the rest of the rifles and pistols, enough to fend off the lunatics should they try to break in.
The smart thing to do was to mount up and get out of there, to leave the valley to crazed Philberta and her insane brood. But Nate was determined to end it, one way or another. He owed it to Peter. He owed it to himself. So here he was, stalking the dappled woodland, pitting his savvy and his skill against things with an insatiable appetite for raw flesh. He could still see that hideous face in the window, still feel those terrible fingers squeezing the life from him. He shuddered, then steeled himself.
The junction of the cliffs appeared ahead. Nate couldn’t see the cave yet. He was hoping that was where he would find them.
The silence ate at his nerves. It was so unnatural. Even the wind had died. He avoided twigs and dry brush and anything else that might crunch or crackle and give him away.
Off through the trees the black opening yawned.
Nate went another dozen steps, and stopped. He watched the cave opening for signs of movement, but there were none. If they were there, they were in the inky recesses of their lair.
Wedging the Hawken to his shoulder, Nate advanced. He couldn’t wait all day for them to appear. He must force the issue. If they weren’t there, they could be anywhere. Maybe at the cabin, about to attack Aggie and Tyne. He must find out.
The sickening stench seemed worse than the day before, if that was possible. Nate fought down more bitter bile. He avoided looking at the grisly remains, and at the legion of fl
ies and maggots crawling over the putrid flesh.
Nate stopped again. He was in clear view, and he braced for a howling rush. But nothing happened. The flies and maggots continued to eddy and the reek filled his nose, but nothing else. They weren’t there.
Nate turned to hurry back to the cabin. Yet again, he thought he’d made the right decision and it turned out to be a mistake. He should never have left Aggie and Tyne alone.
Overcome by guilt, Nate nearly missed the patter of feet behind him. He whirled just as the youngest of the three leaped. Blayne’s eyes were aglow with unholy bloodlust, and his teeth were bared. In mid-air he howled. And in midair, Nate shot him.
The Hawken’s muzzle was inches from the mad youth’s chest when it went off. The heavy slug cored Blayne’s sternum, and the impact flipped him onto his back. Growling and spurting crimson, he tried to stand but only made it to his hands and knees when his life fled and his limbs gave out.
Nate had no time to congratulate himself. The other two were almost on him. He dropped the rifle and streaked his hands to his waist. But he had not quite drawn his flintlock and knife when Norton and Liford slammed into him. Teeth sought his throat. Fingers gouged and ripped.
Spinning, Nate sent Norton tumbling. Liford clung on; dementia given form and substance, he shrieked and bit at Nate’s jugular.
Jerking aside, Nate tugged his pistol loose and slammed it against the madman’s temple. Liford sagged but didn’t go down. Nate smashed him a second time, and then a third, crushing an ear and splitting a cheek. But Liford still clung on. Jamming the flintlock against Liford’s ribs, Nate fired.
The lunatic staggered. He gawked at the hole in his side and let out a screech of rage and pain. Amazingly, he stayed on his feet and flew at Nate again in a frenzy of teeth and nails.
But Nate had the bowie out. He sheared it into Liford’s belly down low, and sliced upward until the steel grated on rib. Liford’s insides spilled out and he collapsed in a heap, dead before he sprawled in the dirt.
Two down, Nate thought to himself. He spun, looking for the third, but Norton had disappeared. Nate had a choice to make. Reload, or go after him. Thinking of Aggie and Tyne, Nate stuck the flintlock under his belt, drew his tomahawk, and dashed into the forest. To his right was a pine, to his left a thicket. He ran between them, watching the thicket since it offered better concealment. Above him a bough swayed, and the next instant a hurtling form slammed into his shoulder blades and he was bowled to the earth.
Norton screeched as he scrambled up into a crouch.
Dazed, Nate groped for his knife. He had lost it when he fell. The madman charged, and Nate cleaved the tomahawk at Norton’s contorted face. By rights the keen edge should have split it like a melon, but the lunatic’s speed was superhuman. Norton sidestepped, shifted, and sprang at Nate again.
Nate swung, and swung again, but it was like trying to imbed the tomahawk in a ghost. Norton dodged and laughed, and danced and laughed. And just when Nate began to think the madman was treating their life-and-death struggle as some sort of game, he swung again, and missed again, and before he could recover his balance, Norton sprang.
Fetid breath fanned Nate’s neck as Norton sought to sink his teeth into Nate’s throat.
Nate did the only thing he could think of; he smashed his head into Norton’s face. Cartilage crunched, and moist drops spattered Nate’s brow. Howling, Norton leaped back, shaking his head to clear it.
His arm a blur, Nate sank the tomahawk into the lunatic’s head.
Norton stiffened. Arms rigid, his eyelids fluttering, he tottered. His mouth worked, but no sounds came out. Like mud oozing down a rain-soaked slope, he slowly oozed to the ground. The convulsions he broke into were brief. A last strangled gasp was the last sound he ever made, and then the last of the madmen died.
But Nate wasn’t done yet. There was still the mad-woman to deal with.
Placing his foot on Norton’s chest, Nate gripped the tomahawk handle, and wrenched. He wiped the blade clean on the grass, then gathered his weapons and began to reload. He had finished with the Hawken and was about to load the flintlock when a shot cracked in the distance. On its heels, faint but unmistakable, came a scream.
Fear filling his breast, Nate raced for the cabin. He told himself that Agatha wouldn’t be foolish enough to open the door or undo the curtains, that she knew better than to put herself and Tyne at grave risk. But then he remembered the other times she hadn’t heeded his advice, and he pushed himself to run faster.
Branches tore at his buckskins. A low limb tried to gouge his eye. Nate plowed on, heedless of the cuts and nicks. He had come a long way and it would take much too long to reach the cabin. By the time he got there, whatever had happened would be over.
Still, Nate didn’t slow. He ran until his lungs were fit to rupture and his legs throbbed with pain. He ran until he was caked with sweat from his hair to his toes, and on the verge of collapse. And then the cabin and the corral were only a dozen yards away.
Nate almost called out. But that would give him away. Slowing, he crept forward. The horses hadn’t been harmed or let loose, thank God. To be stranded afoot in the Rockies, the old trappers liked to say, was a surefire invite to an early grave.
Nate came to the front of the cabin, and froze. From inside came humming. A chill rippled down his spine. He had to will his legs to move.
The front door was closed, the curtains were still tied shut.
Muffled voices caused Nate’s heart to leap into his throat. At least one of them was still alive! He darted to the door, hunkered, and put his ear to it.
“—what you intend to do with us? And this time I would be grateful for an answer, if you don’t mind.”
Nate had rarely heard a sound as sweet as Agatha’s angry voice.
Philberta’s titter was laced with lunacy. “Here we go round the mulberry bush, the mulberry bush, the mulberry bush. Here we go round the mulberry bush, on a cold and frosty morning.”
“If I never hear another nursery rhyme for as long as I live, it will be too soon,” Aunt Aggie said.
“Rain, rain, go away, come again another day.”
“Damn you, Philberta. Enough is enough. Talk plain and simple, not your gibberish. What do you intend to do?”
Nate heard Philberta laugh. Judging by the sounds, Agatha was over near the fireplace. Philberta was nearer.
“My, oh my. What a tart tongue you have, dear Aggie. And you always on your high horse about not swearing in front of the children.”
“So you can talk normally when you want to?”
“Billy, Billy come along and I will sing a pretty song.”
“Why have you tied me in this rocking chair?”
“The better to keep an eye on you, granny,” Philberta said, and snickered.
“I demand you cut me loose.”
“There was an old owl lived in an oak, wiskey, wasky, weedle. And all the words he ever spoke were fiddle, faddle, feedle.”
“Answer me another question,” Agatha prompted. “How is it you’re not as insane as your sons? You have lucid moments, do you not?”
“Are any of us ever lucid?” was Philberta’s response. “As for the why, I suspect it’s because they ate more of the thorn apples than I did. I liked the mushrooms better.”
Agatha suddenly asked in alarm, “What are you doing there? Take your hands off Tyne.”
Dread choked Nate’s breath in his throat. He gripped the latch and lightly lifted but the door wouldn’t open. The bar was in place.
“Didn’t you hear me!” Agatha cried. “It’s bad enough you hit her with that horse pistol. She’s lucky you didn’t split her head open.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t call it luck. She should come around soon, and the moment she opens her eyes, I will send her to join her father and mother and sister.”
“Damn you, leave her be! Why are you dragging her toward the pantry?”
Nate didn’t wait to hear any more. He remembered what was
in the pantry. Rising, he went to throw his shoulder against the door, but then he had a better idea. He darted to the window and compared its width to the width of his shoulders. He could make it. Taking half a dozen quick steps back, he set the Hawken down, lowered his head, and hurtled at the red curtains.
Inside the cabin, Tyne screamed.
Throwing his arms out in front of him, Nate dived through the window. The curtains proved no hindrance. They tore free under his weight and wrapped around his head and shoulders. He landed on his side, and rolled. For a few anxious moments he imagined Philberta about to shoot him as he struggled to free himself from the red folds, but when he cast them aside she was in the pantry, one arm around Tyne’s waist and the other at the girl’s throat, trying to hoist a struggling Tyne up and impale her on the meat hook.
“Nate!” Aunt Aggie cried. Ropes bound her wrists to the arms of the rocking chair and her ankles to the legs. Blood seeped from a bullet wound in her right shoulder.
Philberta saw him. A look of raw hate and crazed ferocity came over her. Suddenly screeching in rage, she lifted Tyne off the floor and turned her so Tyne’s back was to the meat hook.
“No!” Nate flew toward the pantry.
“Mr. King!” Tyne wailed, kicking and twisting, tears streaming down her face. “She’s going to kill me!”
Not if Nate could help it. He was not aware of drawing his bowie but it was in his hand when he reached the pantry door.
Philberta couldn’t lift Tyne high enough. Suddenly flinging the girl against the shelves, she reached behind her. When her hand reappeared, she held the two blood-spattered knitting needles. “I’ve had enough of you!” she shrieked, and was on him in a whirlwind of flying arms and needles.
Parrying with the bowie, Nate gave way. He wanted Philberta out of the pantry and away from Tyne. His ploy worked. Snarling and hissing, Philberta came after him.
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